I’ve been watching you for a few minutes, Madam, squirming in front of me as if your ass was on fire. You seek to escape, to regain your freedom. Your sacrosanct individual freedom that allows you to say “everyone does what they want”, like the guy in the electric Hummer.
We should never talk about politics, surrogacy, feminism or climate change in the partiesbecause we would realize how much people are steeped in ordinary little cowardice.
Had we mentioned one of the last chronicles of MBC (Mathieu Bock-Côté)? Just the title, already: “The very worrying world that the ecologists, moderates and radicals are preparing for us”. Because the culprits are all designated. Why not them?
Imagine, Madam, there are naughty “radical” ecologists who spoil your recklessness and have the audacity to point out that if you take a transatlantic flight round trip, you burn your carbon footprint for a year (suggested by the Accord Paris): 1.8 tonnes of CO2, 5.3 tons in first class. You don’t have a private jet? I admire voluntary simplicity. Flying is a birthright, like your Canadian passport.
“Well, are we going to stop breathing? » (It might happen, I hope you don’t have asthma), « We are all making an effort! (It would seem that the poor in Quebec do more than the others; they release three times less carbon.)
It is a way of seeing that the world is no longer livable and anxiety-provoking, without wanting to make concessions on its privileges. We are not ready to imagine a life outside of the fossil speed we enjoy every day.
“Me, I want to participate, but the plane is no! (Don’t worry, 9% of you will go to Europe this year, 4% more than last year), “You’ve probably flown more often than me” (The purity contest is is always an interesting dodge.)
“We all have our contradictions. (Yes, indeed, you will explain to your children that the FAO – not a radical environmentalist cell – the Food and Agriculture Organization at the UN, plans another 60 harvests worldwide. After? All at the Kraft Dinner with neon orange. And by 2050—25 years—half the planet will run out of water. We’ll be drinking Coke.)
It’s too big, close your eyes
“I went to the Earth Day walk, it was magical! you said to me, Madame. Everything is fine, everything is fine.
I know denial is a survival strategy, like alcohol, gaming and the four seasons of Virgin River on Netflix (the 5e is scheduled for September, I can’t help myself). Right now I have the book Petromasculinity who looks at me, War and ecology And Until more thirsty (no reference to the wine route). subjects less sexy that the final of Chiefs or your cruise in Bora-Bora.
I’ve had a passion for climate change for over 20 years and I feel like I’m playing a supporting role in the movie don’t look upa metaphor for cosmic denial.
You also told me that it was the fault of the journalists who did not have the right approach: “You have to be inclusive. As if we hadn’t tried. We’ve passed the mark, I’m afraid, of medicine in the honey spoon.
My colleagues who are dedicated to the environment receive death threats, the ecological astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau has withdrawn from social networks, the filmmaker Cyril Dion (Tomorrow, 2015) still defends himself as best he can on Twitter, but he is on the verge of capitulating: “And the time that activists spend justifying themselves, they don’t spend it on anything else”. I invite you to read his thread: bit.ly/3JcF9Gd
Already flown? You cannot criticize the aircraft. Do you put gas in your car? You cannot criticize Total.
And what’s worse, ma’am, is that governments will wait until we’re all gathered in a gymnasium with our wheeled suitcases to take action that we think is better for the complexion than neon lighting. Too little, too late. It is true that Maxime Bernier invites you to the status quo and that you suffer from information fatigue.
Just for you, I did the 2022 Climate Action (Inaction) Barometer (https://bit.ly/43RZGYI) (Laval University), and it is clear that we do not want to be disturbed in our rescue.
The population tends to favor simple climate actions to put in place on a daily basis (and above all harmless, like your bamboo straws) rather than profound changes in their lifestyles.
A walk with Greta does it. And that, our politicians know it, they go there too. But, according to this Barometer, we are only 35% to vote for a candidate who is committed to prioritizing the fight against climate change.
hope and denial
Hope and denial fornicate in the same bed and make strong children. Psychiatrist Serge Tisseron wrote Denial or the factory of blindness, where he evokes the biases of optimism and conformism. We are sheep, soon to be “on the spit”. Denial installs us in a world that seems more real to us “because it makes more room for my desires”.
According to the doctor, climate denial is built on the denial of our own mortality: “If the daily possible death of each of us is not reintroduced into our society in its rightful place, how can we take into account the possible death of our planet? »
The contrast with which we continue to live quietly and what happens to us is dizzying
The Dr Tisseron tells us that “accepting our weaknesses and learning to live with the idea of death are two major conditions for ending the catastrophic denial of climate change”.
The two co-chairs of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) no longer bother to provide the popsicle with their heat wave predictions. South African biogeographer Debra Roberts was responding to a newspaper reporter The world this week: “As far as I’m concerned, I’m not selling hope. Hope does not put a roof over your head. He does not give you drinking water. It does not protect you. I believe in hard work. The IPCC summary report indicates that we must reduce our emissions by 60% by 2035. This reduction will be predetermined by the actions put in place by 2025.” 18 months…
You see Madame, when you claim your freedom, I hear my Mexican roommate telling me that her city of one million inhabitants (Xalapa) now has access to running water in rotation every other day.
There’s always someone who pays, but as long as we don’t know him, that’s nothing, Madame la Marquise. It is nothing.